The Widow of Windsor (44 page)

One day after she had been in the Blue Room she was thinking of the past when going upstairs she missed a stair and fell.

The consternation there was! Brown was called to pick her up. He scolded her: ‘And what did ye think ye were doing, woman!’

She could smile and be grateful for his care.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

‘I’ll get ye a wee drop of the right medicine,’ he told her.

She drank the whisky while he sat drinking too; she watched him tenderly. Dear honest Brown.

The fall had brought on her old rheumaticky pains and the next morning she was bruised and suffered considerable pain, unable to move.

Jenner was worried. He thought Her Majesty should try to walk a little. She tried but the effort was too painful.

‘Rest is what you need,’ said Jenner. ‘Let us see how Your Majesty feels after a day or so of complete rest.’

Each day Brown carried her from her bed to her sofa. He thought that it wasn’t good for her to spend so much time indoors; he would get out the wee pony chair so that she could drive round in that but he wasn’t going to trust her by herself. He thought he – and only he – should drive her.

The Queen listened to the masterful Brown and gave way to his suggestions. ‘His one thought,’ she told Jenner, ‘is for my comfort.’

One morning she had a shock when a servant came in to take her orders for the day.

‘But where is Brown?’ she demanded.

‘Brown, Your Majesty, is unable to attend you this morning. His face is swollen.’

‘Brown’s face swollen.’ The Queen smiled. Oh dear, did this mean that Brown was ‘bashful’ again? Perhaps the previous night there had been a celebration of some sort in the servants’ quarters. And if there had been
he
would have to be there. No celebration would be complete without Brown.

The Queen said nothing. At midday she sent for news of Brown. Brown’s face was still swollen; it was red and inflamed and he appeared to be quite sick.

The Queen sent for Jenner. ‘Pray go at once and see what ails John Brown,’ she said.

When the doctor came back she was alarmed. ‘Brown has caught a chill. I’m afraid that he is suffering from erysipelas.’

‘Is that a very serious illness, Sir William?’

‘It need not be fatal,’ was the reply.

Need not be fatal! Big strong John Brown seriously ill. It was unthinkable.

‘Sir William you must attend him yourself and get Dr Reid.’

Sir William was a little surprised. After all he and Dr Reid were the royal physicians and although everyone knew of the Queen’s regard for Brown, he was only her Highland servant.

But this was not the time to argue about such a matter.

Sir William called in Dr Reid and they both set about the task of bringing back John Brown to health and the Queen’s service.

In the midst of this Princess Helen’s daughter was born.

Leopold with a child! This was wonderful.

‘I must go and see the child,’ she said.

It was very sad that John Brown was unable to take her and carry her in as she was still unable to put her foot to the ground.

She tried not to worry too much about Brown. After all he was not old and he was vital and full of health. He would scorn this erysipelas as he did everything else he didn’t like. John Brown would soon be well again.

She was carried into the bedchamber. Leopold had had one of his bouts and the doctors would not allow him to move, so he had to receive her lying on a sofa; the birth of the child was so recent that Helen was on a sofa also; and when the Queen was carried in she found that a sofa had been prepared for her.

She could not help laughing. ‘Really,’ she said, ‘it is quite ludicrous. Here are we all unable to stand on our feet!’

Helen said she was delighted that the Queen had come and the baby was proudly shown. A lovely little girl, commented the Queen; but the real significance of the occasion was of course that Leopold had been able to beget a child.

How pleased Albert would have been.

At Windsor she was growing really anxious. Brown’s condition was not improving.

Each day she sent for Sir William and Dr Reid and demanded that she be given a full account.

‘It has somehow taken a hold of him, Your Majesty.’

‘But Brown is not old. He’s so strong.’

‘That’s true,’ said Sir William. ‘But it is often people who have never been ill who are suddenly stricken down. Illness bewilders them. They have never had it before. It seems to take them by surprise.’

‘I don’t think anything would take Brown by surprise.’

She herself was getting better. The rest had done her good and the pain and stiffness of her joints was disappearing.

And then on that dreadful March day the news was brought to her. John Brown was dead.

She was prostrate with grief. She could not believe it.

‘I have lost my best and truest friend,’ she protested. How could life be so cruel? It seemed that she only had to love and the loved one was taken from her. Perhaps love was the wrong word to use when speaking of a servant, but Brown was no ordinary servant. Dearest Albert, her great love, her reason for living, had been snatched from her at a comparatively early age; Lord Beaconsfield had been taken, true he was a very old man; and now John Brown … It was senseless. It was cruel.

She was desolate. It was no use the family’s trying to console her, for she was inconsolable.

‘He was part of my life,’ she said. ‘Now I have to start again. This is the second time. It is asking too much.’

She was oblivious to the comments her attitude set in motion.

The question was being asked everywhere. What had been the relationship between the Queen and John Brown? Had he been her lover? Had she been secretly married to him? Had he some peculiar psychic power over her? Was he the medium through whom she was in touch with Albert?

Nobody understood the Queen. She was a lonely woman; her children – though she loved them – could never mean to her what the strong figure of a man beside her could mean. She was essentially feminine; she needed a man to care for her, to look after her, to lean on; and although as Queen she would never give up one tiny bit of her sovereignty, even to Albert, as the woman she wished to exploit her frail femininity. Albert had supplied the perfect prop; and afterwards there had been Lord Beaconsfield to give her what she needed in her public life. But it was her private life that was most important and in that she had good faithful honest John Brown.

And now he had been taken from her.

What could she do? She must start again. It was almost as it had been in that dreadful desolate December more than twenty years ago.

Once more she was alone.

What could she do to show her sorrow? Of one thing she was certain, she would make no secret of it. The whole of England must mourn for the death of good faithful Brown.

She herself wrote an account of his virtues for the
Court Circular
. Her secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, trembled for what he called her indiscretions concerning John Brown. He was horrified when she decided that there should be a life of him. She had discovered that he had kept diaries. Sir Theodore Martin had, under her guidance, written what she called an excellent life of the Prince Consort which meant that Albert had been presented to the public as almost a saint. Now she would like him to do the same for that other man in her life. Sir Theodore was a little horrified as to what effect this would have and tactfully replied that because of his wife’s physical condition he feared that he must spend too much time with her to be able to do justice to the work, so the Queen decided she would find another biographer. Those about her trembled at what revelations this would bring forth, but the Queen gave herself up to considering memorials. There should be a statue which should be placed at Balmoral; and at Osborne she would have a granite seat set up in memory of him.

She became a little irritable with those about her.

‘How I miss John Brown’s strong arm!’ she was often heard to say.

She talked about him a great deal; his ‘bashfulness’; his quaint sayings; everything that he had been to her. Often she would lie on her sofa and think of those days when he had carried her to her room.

Then she would weep silently and think of the past and would be so lost in it that she would wake startled and think she heard a voice thick with bashfulness and yet lilting with his Highland accent demanding to know ‘Why ye’re sitting in the dark greeting, woman?’

Once more, she said to herself, I am left lonely.

Chapter XXIII

THE DILKE DIVORCE

In order to overcome her melancholy the Queen decided to prepare for publication another edition of her journal. She would call it
More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands
; and it would cover the years 1862–1882. She would dedicate it: ‘To my loyal Highlanders and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend John Brown.’

It pleased her very much to go carefully through her accounts of those long ago days and recall them so clearly. She wept quietly because the early part brought back so vividly the utter desolation of the years following Albert’s death and how threatening and dour the mountains had seemed when he was no longer there to compare them with his beloved Thuringian forests.

She sent Bertie an advance copy of the Journal which brought him hurriedly to Windsor.

‘Mama,’ he cried, ‘I do beg of you not to have this generally circulated.’

‘What do you mean?’ she cried indignantly.

‘It is too personal.’

‘My dear Bertie, I know I am not an author of the standing of Mr Dickens or Mr Thackeray or Scott and Tennyson, but I venture to think that my account of my life in the Highlands will give pleasure to a great many people.’

‘I am sure it will, Mama, but it is exposing your private life to the world.’

‘
My
private life, Bertie, contains nothing of which I am ashamed.’

That shaft went home and Bertie had the grace to blush.

‘I am sorry, Mama, but I do feel strongly about it.’

‘Well, Bertie, I am prepared to admit that it would
not
be good for the family if every member of it exposed – as you say – his or her actions to the world. I can assure you that when dear Papa’s
Life
was published – and it was so beautifully and
feelingly
done by Sir Theodore Martin, I read it with the greatest pleasure and felt better than I had done since he had died. And I am sure my first
Leaves
did no harm and did
me
a great deal of good. I might tell you, Bertie, that Lord Beaconsfield complimented me on it and used to refer to us as fellow authors and I venture to think that Lord Beaconsfield’s assessment of literary merit must have been far greater than yours for I have heard it said that you rarely open a book.’

Bertie said he wasn’t thinking of literary merit, but the effect of making her private life known to the world.

‘Nonsense,’ said the Queen.

‘I seem not to be mentioned in it.’

‘Which shows how carefully you have read the book. You are mentioned five times.’

‘That does not seem much for your eldest son.’

‘My dear Bertie, had you come more often to Balmoral your name would naturally have appeared more frequently in the Journal. Now, let me hear no more of this matter.’

Bertie left Windsor as some described it ‘with his tail between his legs’ as he so often did after his encounters with his mama; but at least the Life of John Brown was not published, although the Queen had gone so far as to have his journals edited.

First there were delays – unavoidable, so the Queen was told; and it might have been that she too began to realise the lack of wisdom in publishing them. The matter was allowed to drop; but that did not mean she did not continue to mourn her faithful Highland servant.

Leopold’s married life was progressing favourably. Princess Helen was again pregnant which was remarkable, for his little daughter Alexandra was a healthy little creature. ‘Yet another grandchild!’ sighed the Queen. ‘So many, that I have to think hard to count them up.’

Then Leopold had another of his bouts and the doctors thought a spell at Cannes would be good for him. As the spring had come, the South of France would be delightful so he and his family took up residence at the Villa Nevada and letters reached the Queen, much to her gratification, that Leopold’s health had greatly improved.

A year had passed since the death of John Brown and the Queen, who always kept anniversaries, had a superstitious feeling about them. Because she had suffered acutely on such and such a day she would feel that there was some malevolent purpose at work and she would come to dread that day. She remembered that her beloved husband and daughter Alice had both died on the 14th of December and it was on that very date that Bertie had come right up to the gates of death and by a miracle been brought back to life.

Now it was the 27th of March; a year to that day when they had come to tell her that her dear faithful John Brown was dead. She had written in her Journal that she mourned him still. She supposed she would never cease to do that.

She awoke with a feeling of apprehension for she had been reading her Journal before she slept; and when a telegram arrived from Cannes she expected disaster.

It was only faintly alarming; Helen had just sent word to say that Leopold had slipped and damaged his knee. A trifling matter with most people, but the slightest injury in Leopold’s case could bring on the dreaded bleeding.

The Queen felt depressed. She wondered whether she should go out to Cannes. Helen understood the care that had to be taken and so did Leopold’s servants; but Helen was expecting her second child. The Queen was uncertain what to do. Mr Gladstone was always so
peevish
when she suggested leaving the country. Oh, how she missed the kind understanding of Lord Beaconsfield!

And the next day came the terrible news. Leopold was dead. He had had a kind of epileptic fit which had been brought on by a haemorrhage of the brain.

So she had lost another child.

‘He was the dearest of my sons,’ she said; but she knew that this was what they had been forced to expect ever since they had discovered his weakness. She should be thankful that he had been spared to her for so long.

His body was brought home and he was buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor.

Three months later his posthumous son was born.

An anxious time followed Leopold’s death and the Queen’s mind was taken from family concerns to State matters.

She was very dissatisfied with her government; there was anxiety about Egypt, the affairs of which country were now almost completely under British domination. A fanatical leader known as the Mahdi had arisen in the Sudan which was under Egyptian rule and therefore a concern of Britain. The government, to the Queen’s dismay, decided that it would be better to abandon the Sudan and leave it in the control of the Mahdi, agreeing however to rescue the Egyptian forces which still remained there. Their efforts to do this were so dilatory that there was, as the Queen described it, unnecessary massacre; but finally the government agreed to send out General Gordon to Khartoum.

Mr Gladstone’s conception of Empire was, alas, not that of Lord Beaconsfield; and the Queen considered it the height of disaster to the country that that clever, far-sighted man had died to leave matters in the hands of The People’s William.

There was also much with which to concern herself at home. Bertie had been elected as a member of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes. Mr Gladstone was constantly deploring the fact that Bertie had too little with which to occupy himself and to give Bertie his due he did enjoy having some task presented to him; it might well have been that had he been given some post he would not have got into such mischief as he did.

Bertie had become far too friendly with Sir Charles Dilke, that dreadful radical, and now the Prince himself was becoming something of a radical.

He was taken round London to see how the poor lived and declared himself to be horrified. First of all a typical working man’s dress had to be found for him and he went
incognito
in company with others. He came back to her – and told her what he had seen.

Poor Bertie, with all his faults he was very kind-hearted; there were tears in his eyes as he kept reiterating: ‘Something must be done.’

‘There was a room without any furniture, Mama,’ he went on. ‘A heap of rags and a poor skeleton of a woman lying on it, too weak to move; her children had no clothes whatsoever … I wanted to empty my pockets of everything I had but I was told that if I showed so much …
so much
, Mama, there would be a riot. These people would not believe there was so much money in the world! Something must be done.’

She herself agreed to this. Something must be done. General Booth and his Salvation Army were making people aware of conditions in the poor districts like those of St Giles’.

She read
The Bitter Cry of Outcast London
and wept.

She discussed it with the Prime Minister and she wondered why men who were so concerned with religion and the vote seemed to think that the distressing housing conditions and starvation of the poor was of less moment. She even felt a little drawn towards Sir Charles Dilke.

‘I begin now,’ she said, ‘to understand his concern for poor people.’

There was worse to follow. General Gordon had reached Khartoum where he was besieged by the Mahdi and his men.

‘He must be relieved at once,’ insisted the Queen.

Mr Gladstone’s Ministry was as usual dilatory; his government, he said, had no desire to be involved in a war in Egypt.

The people were with the Queen and they deplored the government’s neglect of those men fighting the Empire’s battles far away. Then before the relief arrived General Gordon was killed at the storming of Khartoum; she was furious with her government and at the same time very sad. She could not honour his family enough and fell back to her usual method of showing respect by having a bust made and placing it in Windsor Castle.

But in spite of the fact that relieving forces eventually arrived the Sudanese expedition was far from an unqualified success and she brooded on the fact that had Lord Beaconsfield been in command it would have been very different.